As rare a piece of rolling stock as ever ran along a railway line recently clattered its last journey between Piangil and Kooloonong in north western Victoria and the era of what were called postal motors came to an end.

The contraption resembled a louvre-windowed garden shed with a wheel on each corner. Into its tiny cramped cabin there sometimes crowded up to fifteen passengers plus its famous driver Bill Roberts who started the service in 1940 and finished it in 1972 having travelled 131,650 miles on the run in between times.

The passengers were none of your pampered mainline travellers they were a hardy race and "they had to be".as one patron put it:

“The louvres rattled, your teeth rattled, the cab shook and swayed like crazy, the air cooled engine there in the cabin with you roared with an inspired din and the temperature with all doors and windows open often reached 132 degrees on a hot day.”

And all that went on for one hour and ten minutes while the postal motor travelled the 15¾ mile journey with one intermediate stop at Natya.

But of course, passengers were only a secondary consideration. The postal motor service was run by the Victorian Railways on behalf of the Post Office for the carriage of mails. In the 1930’s there were more than 50 such postal motors in service on outback lines where conventional trains were not economically justified.

Now with the retirement of the twice weekly PiangilKooloonong service they are all gone, supplanted in mail delivery either by developing rail services or road transport.

Bill Roberts commenced the run with a Sheffield engine powered motor which served the line and the locals faithfully for nearly 29 years.

It developed one rather disconcerting fault every now and then a wheel would drop off. So it was declared ‘unrailworthy’ but Bill stuck the wheels on and drove it 28 miles to the Swan Hill Folk Museum where it is today on exhibition.

It was replaced by the Casey Jones type recently retired which was powered by an air cooled Wisconsin engine. But economics caught up with Casey Jones and the mails today are carried by road.

Reprinted from Australian Post Office News - July 1972